Learning to Spend Myself....

"Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love.Where there is injury, pardon;Where there is doubt, faith;Where there is despair, hope;Where there is darkness, light;Where there is sadness, joy. O Divine Master, grant that I may not So much seek to be consoled As to console,To be understood as to understand, To be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive, It is in pardoning that we are pardoned, And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life." -Saint Francis of Assisi

I love this quote by St Francis of Assisi because it sums up perfectly what the Lord has been doing on Friday nights in our girls small groups. We have 4 girls who come every Friday night to Adrienne's. We make dinner together, some times make a craft and then do a Bible study together. God has been so faithful during this time and has huge this time together to really build a community where the girls can come and just leave all the burdens of home at the door and just let down their guard and their baggage and be real with each other. Weekly at least one of the girls will tell me that they have just push through the week knowing that Friday night will soon come because it is the only good thing they have in a week. It gives them something to look forward to. THe girls are each at different places in their walk with God and are all very different in personalities and yet God has given us such unity in our group that it is such a blessing to see.

As I wrote in my last blog, God has really used St. Francis of Assisi to challenge me in growing in my understanding of what it means to die to myself and live my life in complete surrender to Him. This previous quote has become my prayer to live out this kind of life of surrender, spending myself on behalf of others in order to let the light and hope of Christ break through in the darkness and dispair of the world in which I live.

I want to share with you one way that myself and some other staff at Joe's Place are trying to physically do this this month. First I want to tell you of a thirteen year old girl that comes to our Friday night girls small group. This girl has had a really hard life and has struggled with addictions such as anorexia and cutting since she was 11 in order to cope with the pain in her life. She's been coming to Joe's Place for a year now and it blows me away to see how much she has changed in this past year. One thing that I was reminded of while reading St. Francis of Assisi's biography was that conversion is a life time process. THe girls I work with at Joe's Place remind me of this every time I'm with them. This girl in particular although she hasn't made a commitment yet I can see GOd transforming her heart and mind each week. this girl told me the other Friday "Leanne, I'm not there yet but I'm on my way". It is so encouraging to hear her recognize that she is on this journey and she is working her way there.

The past month for this girl has been one of the hardest months of her life. Everything in her life has been coming down with a crash and literally her life seems to have no hope. To give you an idea of a little bit thats been going on, her mom has had cancer for a year now but a month ago it spread to her lungs and in just the past 3 weeks it has spread to her throat. 2 weeks ago they told her mom she had probably 5 years to live but on Monday she's going in for ultra sound to revaluate that time line because it appears that the cancer is rapidly spreading. Her stepdad is an alcoholic and has been coping with her moms cancer returning by being drunk everyday for the past 6 weeks. Her mom lost her job because her employer let her go because they felt bad that she was sick and working so hard and that her daughter was skipping school to help her work. Since her stepdad has been too drunk to go to work they have no money for groceries or for their bills.

This girl had a stopped cutting for a couple months until all this began up again. Two Fridays ago she came to Bible study and just sobbed for an hour in my arms and showed me her cutting wounds on her feet. she's like "Leanne I didn't want to start again but I just don't know how else to deal with all this, my mom probably won't even make it to see me graduate from Highschool".

That night I switched what we were going to do for Bible study and we just read through Isaiah 40-44, 55. All the girls had had hard weeks and I just wanted us to refocus on where our hope and trust needs to come from. God promises in these passages to never leave us, that he love us and He will be with us even when our worlds seem to be crashing down. After each chapter I read we'd then share what stood out to us in each of the verses. It was really great to have the girls interact with God's word.

I share all this with you to bring us back to this quote by Francis and to bring us back to Isaiah 58. What is the role of us as the body of Christ when we see a family struggling through a time like this?

"Is this the kind of fast I have chosen, only a day for a man to humble himself? Is it only for bowing one's head like a reed and for lying on sackcloth and ashes? Is that what you call a fast, a day acceptable to the LORD ? 6 "Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? 7 Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? 8 Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness [a] will go before you, and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard. 9 Then you will call, and the LORD will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I. "If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk, 10 and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday. "

The other week my roomate and I were compelled to buy this girl and her family groceries because they had no money to buy anything and their cupards were bare. Today their hydro was going to get cut off because their border who was renting their basement left without paying his rent. so they cant pay their electricity. A few of the staff at Joe's Place chipped in to help pay the bill because its been -35 here which is way too cold to live without heat.

I share all this with you guys because a few of us staff at Joe's Place want to bless this family with a Christmas. They don't have money for groceries and we want to bless them with a turkey meal and also some gifts for this girl, her brother and her mom and stepdad. Some things they need are pants, boots, hygine products, etc.

I wanted to ask you as my friends and brothers and sisters in Christ to one pray for this family as they go through this hard time. Already I can see GOd at work in their lives as this girl is really learning what it means to depend on GOd. Her mom has come to Joe's Place a couple times now just to talk and I've had the privilige to encourage her and pray with her. Please pray that through this hard and trialing time that they will come to find the hope of Christ and find fulfillment in Him. Also would you consider if GOd would want you to help us give this family a Christmas that they will remember that God and His people love and care for them. We feel that by loving them in this way God will make himself known to them. after we bought groceries for them this girls mom came to Joe's Place and just held me for the longest time and cried. she was like "Leanne, no one has ever loved me like this before". I got to tell her that its because of God's love for them that we have compelled our hearts to bless them. He wants to provide for them and that is our role as the church, to be his hands and feet.

I love you guys and am so thanksful for your love and prayers. May you know his goodness in your lives today and during this Christmas season allow GOd to use you as you spend yourselves on behalf of the oppressed and the poor.

"if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday. "